Loading Coming Home to Zawtar: Aid & Recovery…
Tap the situation closest to yours — home damaged, home destroyed, displaced, abroad, or unsafe fields — and get a plain checklist of what to do, what papers to gather, and who to contact.
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Coming back to Zawtar El Sharqiyeh after the war means dealing with damage, papers and several different bodies at once — and the help on offer is not in one place. Tap the situation closest to yours below and this page will lay out, in plain steps, what to do, what papers to gather, and who to go to. It is information gathered from public sources as of mid-2026, not legal advice, and it cannot promise you a payment — where something is not yet settled, it says so.
For a home that is damaged rather than destroyed, the aim is to get the damage on the record with the official bodies and to keep your own evidence, so your home is on the list when a formal repair or compensation process opens.
Photograph the damage
Take dated photos of every room and the outside, before you clear or repair anything. Keep them safe — on your phone and somewhere else too.
Report it to the municipality and the Council of the South
They hold the local record of who has been hit. Army engineering teams and Council of the South engineers carry out the damage assessments in the south.
Register even if another body already surveyed you
A party-affiliated campaign may already have recorded your damage. Register through the state route as well, so your home is on the state's list too.
Check that your home is safe to enter first
The Army has warned that homes in the area may be booby-trapped. Do not start repairs until you are sure the building and the ground around it are clear — see the safety note below.
Council of the South (Majlis al-Janoub)
War-damage assessment, help for the displaced and rebuilding in the south
Zawtar lost a large share of its buildings in the fighting of May 2026, some of it along the river. For a destroyed home, the honest position today is to get it fully documented with both the state and any rehabilitation campaign, gather your ownership proof, and watch for a formal application window — because there is not yet an open national process that pays a family to rebuild a private home.
Document what was there
Gather any photos of the home as it was, your ownership papers, and the location. Note the address and plot number if you know them.
Register the total loss with the Council of the South and the municipality
These are the state bodies that record war damage in the south. The documented chain is: the Army assesses, the Council of the South and the Higher Relief Commission record and distribute, and the government signs off.
Ask about the rehabilitation-campaign survey
Hezbollah's Jihad al-Binaa has sent engineers to survey damaged and destroyed homes across the south and has paid many households directly. Residents have reported around $12,000 for a household in the south — about $8,000 toward furniture and $4,000 toward a year's rent — paid through Al-Qard al-Hassan. Payments were reduced and, for a time in 2025, frozen as funding tightened. Ask neighbours who have been surveyed how the process worked for them.
Keep your evidence and watch for a state window
A government reconstruction framework was approved in early 2026, but its funded first phase (the World Bank-backed LEAP programme, run by the CDR) covers public infrastructure — roads, water, power, schools — and explicitly not private homes or farming. Keep everything ready so you can apply the day individual-home funding opens.
Council of the South (Majlis al-Janoub)
Southern war-damage compensation and rebuilding
Many people from Zawtar are staying elsewhere — return is often by day only, with no power or water and a booby-trap risk, so families come back to check and leave before dark. There is some rent and displacement help, but it is uneven, and the state's own cash support is small.
Register as displaced with the Council of the South
It is the state body responsible for help for the displaced from the south. Registering puts you on the record for any allowance or return support.
Ask about the rent allowance
The main rent support reported in the south has come from Jihad al-Binaa — a rent allowance of up to about $500 a month for displaced families whose homes were destroyed, plus a one-time furniture payment. The amounts were cut for some families, and the payments were frozen for a period in 2025 as funding tightened. Ask locally how to be surveyed.
Keep your tenancy and ID papers together
Whether for the state or a campaign, you will be asked to prove who you are and where you were living.
Follow the municipality before returning
The Zawtar municipality and the Army are the trusted voice on whether it is safe to go back. Follow their notices and guidance, not rumour.
Council of the South (Majlis al-Janoub)
Help for the displaced from the south
Many of Zawtar's families live abroad and are following the fate of their homes from a distance. You can still get your property on the record and protect yourself from fraud, even without being there.
Reach someone on the ground
Your mukhtar, the municipality, and neighbours who have returned are the people who can tell you what is standing and help register your damage. Many have shared photos and video of the village.
Get your damage recorded with the Council of the South
Ask a trusted relative to register your property's damage through the state route, or do it yourself through the Council of the South's contacts.
Keep your ownership papers safe and to hand
Title deed, ID, and the property number — you will need them whenever a process opens, and originals are harder to replace now.
Be alert to scams
No official body charges a fee to register your damage or to 'speed up' compensation. Anyone asking for money up front is to be treated as a fraud.
Council of the South (Majlis al-Janoub)
War-damage record for the south — reachable from abroad through its website
Zawtar's living is largely tobacco, grown under a Régie licence, plus other farmland — but the war left fields contaminated with unexploded ordnance, some of it right down to the Litani. A field can look normal and still be deadly. No crop is worth stepping onto uncleared ground.
Do not enter or work a field until it is cleared
Unexploded shells and cluster munitions remain in fields and rubble across the south and have killed and maimed people, including soldiers clearing them, since the ceasefire.
Report suspected ordnance
If you see anything you do not recognise — a metal object, a small canister, a shell — do not touch, move or kick it. Keep children away, move back the way you came, and report it.
Let the trained teams check the land
Clearance is the job of the Lebanon Mine Action Center's Nabatieh centre, the Army and the UN — not your own judgement of how the ground looks. Follow their word on whether a specific plot is safe.
Keep your tobacco licence and quota current
Tobacco is bought through the state Régie, which runs the licensing, quotas and the guaranteed purchase price (paid in US dollars since 2023). A licence needs a minimum yearly delivery to stay active — but it does not make a field safe; clearance comes first.
Lebanon Mine Action Center (LMAC)
Report suspected unexploded ordnance in fields and rubble
Found something that might be unexploded? Do not touch it
No official body charges you to register damage
Why the same question gets different answers
Found something that might be unexploded? Do not touch it
Tap the situation closest to yours for a step-by-step plan.
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